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enData-Driven Questions for the Mayoral Candidateshttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/data-driven-questions-for-the-mayoral-candidates
<p>As part of our coverage of the June 5 election, the San Francisco Public Press has partnered with faculty at the University of California, Davis, to create a data-driven questionnaire that was sent to all eight mayoral candidates.</p>
<p>So far, only three candidates have completed it: Michelle Bravo, Amy Weiss and Ellen Lee Zhou. Four others agreed to participate but have not yet responded: Mark Leno, Jane Kim, Angela Alioto and Richie Greenberg. London Breed declined to participate.</p>
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<p>We’ll publish the results next week.</p>
<p>U.C. Davis political science professors <a href="http://polisci.ucdavis.edu/people/samacken">Scott MacKenzie</a> and <a href="http://ps.ucdavis.edu/people/clboudre">Cheryl Boudreau</a> and law professor <a href="https://law.ucdavis.edu/faculty/elmendorf/">Chris Elmendorf</a> created the questionnaire, which we edited for clarity. The team trawled the voting history of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, flagging split votes as markers for the important topics that distinguished the politicians from each other. Then they crafted questions that would reveal where the mayoral candidates stood on those same issues. For some questions, the team asked whether the candidate supported a policy that had been decided in the past, or that the board is considering. Other questions posed hypothetical scenarios.</p>
<p>Many other organizations’ questionnaires ask open-ended questions, giving candidates the latitude to avoid responding directly. When this happens, it complicates a voter’s effort to draw apples-to-apples comparisons and pick a favorite.</p>
<p>Our questionnaire was designed to sidestep this problem. We asked candidates whether they would support specific policies, and they could respond only with “Yes,” “No” or “I don’t know.” They could also choose to not answer questions.</p>
<p>Find the full questionnaire below.</p>
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https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/data-driven-questions-for-the-mayoral-candidates#commentsCivicsGovernmentElectionsPoliticsSan FranciscoBay AreaAmy WeissAngela AliotocandidatesEllen Lee ZhouJane KimLondon BreedMark LenomayorMichelle BravoRichie GreenbergUC DavisvotingThu, 24 May 2018 14:16:00 +00003151 at https://sfpublicpress.orgNoah ArroyoSpare Room? Mayoral Challenger Zhou Says You Could Help Homelessness Crisishttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/spare-room-mayoral-challenger-zhou-says-you-could-help-homelessness-crisis
<p><strong><em>Sixth in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates’ records and pledges on housing and homelessness.</em></strong></p>
<p>Ellen Lee Zhou has a plan to end San Francisco’s homelessness crisis. And it could involve you.</p>
<p>Zhou, a public health worker who is competing against some political heavyweights to be the next city mayor, said that if elected June 5 she would pay homeowners monthly stipends to house and mentor some of the city’s estimated 4,353 unsheltered residents. Zhou argues that many homeowners would jump at the opportunity to help someone.</p>
<p>“Nobody wants to see homeless die on the street,” said Zhou, who has been a psychiatric social worker at the San Francisco Department of Public Health for more than a decade and frequently works with homeless people.</p>
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<p>“If you talk to any average people who have a home, who have units, they love to help people. Because when you help people, you feel good,” she told the Public Press in an interview after a candidates’ forum in May. “Many of the homeless people, they need support. Like a mentor. Like a person who can coach them — not only does the job and not only a rehab counselor — but a person really give them love and support.”</p>
<p>Her proposal, which she would pay for by trimming the budget elsewhere, resembles San Francisco’s forthcoming “host homes” program, though the city’s is aimed only at homeless youths between the ages of 18 and 24. Pregnant, minority and LGBTQ youths will get priority. A <a href="http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/San-Francisco-Coordinated-Community-Plan-January-2018-Final.pdf">January report</a> estimated that the program could house 30 youths with members of the community for periods of between three and 24 months, at a total cost of about $350,000.</p>
<h2>City to Launch Host-Home Program Aimed at Youths</h2>
<p>The city is working with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to iron out a contract, with federal funding, for a host-home program that is to begin by late summer or early fall, said Ali Schlageter, youth programs manager at the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.</p>
<p>The Public Press examined the host-home concept as one of several <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/homelessness/solutions">potential solutions to the homelessness crisis</a> in a fall 2017 special report.</p>
<p>On their campaign websites and during debates, Zhou’s competitors have advocated a different approach for quickly housing many of San Francisco’s unsheltered residents: expand the Master Lease Program, which rents thousands of rooms in single-room occupancy hotels to low-income tenants at subsidized rates. In his pledge to end street homelessness by 2020, <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/in-mayoral-run-leno-promises-to-get-serious-about-affordable-housing-crisis">Mark Leno</a> has said he would move people into the roughly 1,800 rooms in privately owned SROs that <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/homelessness/solutions/2017-10/no-vacancy-for-the-homeless">the Public Press revealed last fall</a> to be vacant.</p>
<p>But Zhou said that SROs would be unsuitable for many of the people on the streets. Rooms can be cramped and dilapidated, and many of the buildings lie in areas burdened with blight and open drug use. A tenant’s worst vices might be just a brief stroll from the front door.</p>
<h2>Homeless Want ‘Normal Apartment,’ Not an SRO</h2>
<p>Besides that, homeless people “do not want SROs,” she added. “They want a regular, normal apartment, just like everybody else. A roommate, or somebody supportive, a counselor, or somebody who is mentoring them to get out of those negative impacts that draw them, urge them to go back to something that is not good for them.”</p>
<p>But if vacant SROs are used, she added, they should go only to the most high-functioning, formerly homeless people “who have self-control.”</p>
<p>Zhou pointed out a major flaw in City Hall’s approach to clearing encampments: There is not enough available housing for the displaced. She proposed persuading the state or federal governments to fund the construction of a triage center within city limits to temporarily house people while they’re being evaluated and queued for other services and/or housing.</p>
<p>“If they’re homeless, then we pick them up,” she said.</p>
<p>Zhou has no lack of self-confidence, which was on display at a <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/candidates-say-how-they-would-help-african-american-community">May candidates’ forum</a> focused on the African-American community. She began responses to several questions with what has become her trademark, laugh-inducing phrase: “You are talking to the right person.”</p>
<p>Zhou touts her experience and being well connected in her community. When she was a teenager, she and her family immigrated to San Francisco in 1986 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan,_Guangdong">Taishan</a>, in the southern China province of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong">Guangdong</a>, and she has been active in Asian-American affairs for more than 25 years. A born-again Christian and Sunday school teacher for two decades, Zhou also has been a union representative at Service Employees International Union <a href="http://www.seiu1021.org/my-seiu-1021/">Local 1021</a> for more than a dozen years. She recently served two terms on the city’s civil grand jury, examining the workings — and shortcomings — of City Hall at various levels.</p>
<h2>Small Property Owners Reach Out to Her</h2>
<p>It is through her community connections, she said, that she has encountered many small property owners who have told her they hold rooms empty to avoid burdensome city regulations and litigious tenants.</p>
<p>Zhou said she gets many calls from landlords who don’t speak English, asking for guidance on how to handle a lawsuit from a tenant. Last year, she got 15 such calls regarding lawsuits for millions of dollars, Zhou said.</p>
<p>Zhou said that in her conversations with small property owners, she has seen a trend of lawyers persuading tenants to sue their landlords, sometimes over fabricated scenarios. If elected, Zhou would scale up mediation services to solve problems before they escalate. And she would provide free legal counsel to small property owners when lawsuits could not be avoided.</p>
<p>This could make landlords more willing to rent out their vacant rooms, increasing the available supply and ameliorating the housing affordability crisis.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stoeEeYpEoo">video interview</a> published by NTD Television, however, Zhou struck a different tone. She appeared to oppose the key mandate of <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2018-04/proposition-f-free-legal-aid-for-tenants-facing-eviction">Proposition F</a>, which would provide free legal counsel to tenants facing eviction. “We will do mediation,” she said. “If they want to do lawsuit, the tenants should pay for their own legal fee. No legal help.”</p>
<h2>The Pitch to Owners on Hosting Homeless People</h2>
<p>Exactly how many rooms or units property owners are keeping empty has defied quantification. A 2014 report by <a href="http://www.spur.org/">SPUR</a>, a San Francisco-based planning and urban research think tank, used U.S. Census Bureau data to estimate that about <a href="http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/SPUR_Non-Primary_Residences.pdf">30,000 housing units</a> were vacant in the city, most commonly so that they would remain available for seasonal, recreational or occasional use.</p>
<p>To Zhou, these numbers represent an opportunity.</p>
<p>She made a mock pitch. “Would you like to shelter a person? And this person is not that bad. It’s just that they need a little help. I’m going to give you $2,000” per month. “Your contract’s about six months, and I want you to help in the transition of this person, to stay away from drugs and help him, or help her, have a job. And we’ll work with you. Would you like to help us?” Case managers and medical workers could visit the tenant on-site.</p>
<p>She said that she owns a house in Potrero Hill, “but I don’t have any extra room to rent.” If that changed, she added, she, too, would host and mentor someone who was homeless.</p>
<p>Despite Zhou’s suspicion that there are many thousands more unsheltered homeless people than <a href="http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in-Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf">the city’s latest count</a> of 4,353 people, she is certain that enough homeowners would participate to theoretically house everyone. “I have hope, I have faith,” she said, adding that this would allow the government to engage homeowners in helping to solve the homelessness crisis, sending the message that “we are in it together.” Many people might need intensive medical or social services in preparation for these living environments, she said.</p>
<h2>Budget Math Doesn’t Add Up</h2>
<p>Zhou is confident she could find fat to trim off the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s <a href="http://hsh.sfgov.org/overview/budget/">budget</a> to pay for this new initiative. “The city policy fails us,” she said. “If you calculate the total budget and the number of homeless that we serve, it’s minimum $6,000 per homeless per month. We can give them $6,000 to live in a fancy hotel, do you understand?”</p>
<p>Actually, this math does not bear out. The city’s 2017 official Point-in-Time count estimated that a total of <a href="http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in-Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf">7,499 homeless people</a> were living in San Francisco. Dividing the homelessness department’s budget for fiscal year 2016-2017, $275 million, by that population yields an average per-person, per-month expenditure of about $3,056. But Jeff Kositsky, the agency’s director, said in February that the city actually <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/blog/2018-02/10-things-i-learned-about-homelessness-at-our-community-workshop">serves 20,000 people annually</a>.</p>
<p>Though it is a convenient metric, a per-person average cost does not account for the wide variance in services that different people receive — a 90-day stay in a temporary shelter is cheaper than a multiyear tenancy in supportive housing, where medical treatment and other services are provided.</p>
<p>Asked to clarify how she arrived at her $6,000 figure, Zhou did not answer the question directly. “The best answer and the most accurate estimate is to ask the mayor’s office for exact budget for all related [expenditures] to homeless programs,” she wrote in an email. “It is way more than $6,000.00 per a homeless, per a person, per a month. The biggest cost is personnel, the people who provide services to homeless people.”</p>
<p>Zhou’s program would require the formerly homeless tenants to get and keep jobs. “Because we want them to have a second chance at life. This way they can have a clean role model to look into,” she said. “At the same time, give them case managers and doctors and nurses to follow them.”</p>
<p>“They have to pay 30% of their income,” Zhou wrote in follow-up correspondence with the Public Press, without clarifying whether that money would go to the landlord or to the government.</p>
<h2>Criticizes Injection Sites, Aid to ‘Non-Working People’</h2>
<p>If elected, Zhou said she would alter many of the city’s policies to push back on the homelessness crisis. For example, she would try to discourage transients from coming to the city by tightening the eligibility requirements for people to receive homelessness services. And she wants to stop the Department of Public Health’s plans to <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Supervised-Injection-Sites-482700941.html">set up supervised injection sites</a> in August — the first in the nation but against federal law — which are intended to reduce overdoses among intravenous drug users and curb the volume of used needles littering the streets. Zhou said that injection sites will just encourage drug use, and that the health department should lean more heavily on programs designed to help people off of drugs.</p>
<p>She criticized the city’s general policy approach as being too liberal, by focusing assistance on “people who are on welfare, who are non-working people, who are not functional because they depend on drugs, they’re selling drugs, or they’re mentally incapable of living on their own.” She said City Hall should “retrain the homeless people to be independent, so they can live a life with dignity, they can have a job, they can make their own money.”</p>
<p>Zhou realizes that these would be dramatic shifts for the city.</p>
<p>“If we, the public, want to make changes, you need a new breath,” she said. “Like me.”</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/spare-room-mayoral-challenger-zhou-says-you-could-help-homelessness-crisis#commentsDemographicsGovernmentHousingPublic healthBudgetTreatmentElectionsPoliticsCommunity engagementStreetscapeSan FranciscoHomelessnessHousing SolutionschinaChristiandrugsEllen Lee ZhouencampmentsFEMAGuangdonghomelesshomesinjectionJeff KositskylandlordsLGBTQliberalmayormental illnesspropertyrentretrainSEIUsocial workerSROTaishantenantsMon, 21 May 2018 15:05:00 +00003149 at https://sfpublicpress.orgNoah ArroyoGOP Mayoral Candidate Greenberg Aims to Bring ‘More Centrist Viewpoint’ to S.F. City Hallhttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/gop-mayoral-candidate-greenberg-aims-to-bring-more-centrist-viewpoint-to-city-hall
<p><em><strong>Fifth in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates’ records and pledges on housing and homelessness.</strong></em></p>
<p>In 2015, Richie Greenberg ran for District 1 supervisor. On the advice of several acquaintances, he called himself a Democrat. “I was not very politically involved,” he said. A political novice, he soon discovered he was under the wrong tent.</p>
<p>On issues like taxes and the size of government, “I realized … I was actually preaching the Republican platform,” said Greenberg, a startup consultant and small business adviser. “I was for sure an outsider, and I was for sure in the wrong party.”</p>
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<p>He rode out that election, finishing with 3.2 percent of the first-round vote in a contest won by Sandra Lee Fewer. This time around, he’s aligning himself with the GOP. He’s <a href="http://www.richiegreenberg.org/about.html">hoping to become</a> the first Republican mayor of San Francisco in more than 50 years. In a city where only 7 percent of voters are registered Republicans, that may be hoping against hope.</p>
<p>“We don’t need activists leading this city. We need leaders,” Greenberg said in an interview, adding that he would bring a “more centrist viewpoint” to city government. It’s a desire he said he hears from voters of all political stripes.</p>
<p>“I get emails, voicemails and donations from local lifelong Democrats, saying that we are absolutely sick and tired with the left and lefter politics, and that they’ll vote for me because they need someone who’s much more levelheaded,” he said.</p>
<h2>Sees Waste in Homelessness Funding</h2>
<p>Greenberg believes that homeless people “are being used as pawns.” By his account, a big cause of San Francisco’s homelessness problem stems from the failure of those in power to effectively utilize the city’s resources. Thus, the cornerstone of his solution lies in making service organizations more accountable for funding they receive from the city.</p>
<p>“What I believe we are doing poorly is managing our city’s finances that are given to the nonprofits, the homeless-outreach organizations. I’m going to rein in the spending,” he said, without naming organizations or budget line items.</p>
<p>Greenberg has the backing of the <a href="http://www.sfgop.org/">San Francisco Republican Party</a>. “He will look at all the various service providers and there'll be an audit to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do,” said Howard Epstein, the local party’s vice chair of communications.</p>
<p>Epstein also embraces Greenberg’s promises to ease the permit process for new residential construction. “There has to be a more streamlined approach, where you don’t have to go to more than one department to get a permit,” Epstein said.</p>
<p>He also backs Greenberg’s call for a more “regional approach” to housing solutions, such as increased telecommuting, or more companies setting up satellite offices closer to where their workers live.</p>
<p>“Why does every person that wants to work in San Francisco have to live in San Francisco?” Epstein said. “Are we obliged to have to find an affordable home, or luxury home or low-income home for every single person that wants to live here?”</p>
<h2>Opposes Propositions F and D</h2>
<p>San Franciscans will be casting votes June 5 on several measures relating to housing, but Greenberg doesn’t think there are any real solutions on the ballot.</p>
<p>Greenberg opposes Proposition F, which would create a right to free legal representation for anyone facing eviction. He said it would be “unfair,” because it doesn’t give landlords a free lawyer as well.</p>
<p><strong>See: <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2018-04/proposition-f-free-legal-aid-for-tenants-facing-eviction">Proposition F: Free Legal Aid for Tenants Facing Eviction</a></strong></p>
<p>He’s also opposed to Proposition D, a commercial rent tax that would raise money for low- and medium-income housing and homelessness services. And he’s opposed to a repeal of Costa Hawkins, the state law regulating rent control. A repeal may be on the statewide ballot in November, and if voters approve, it could expand the ability of cities to create or expand rent control.</p>
<p>So what are Greenberg’s solutions to the city’s housing and homelessness crises?</p>
<p>He supports expanding the number of one-stop navigation centers, as well as Homeward Bound, which gives one-way bus tickets to people with friends or family who can house them somewhere other than San Francisco. That's in line with Mayor Mark Farrell's intentions.</p>
<p><strong>See: <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/homelessness/navigation">Navigating Homelessness: Which Way Home?</a></strong></p>
<h2>Compared to Rudy Giuliani</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.smallprop.org/">Small Property Owners of San Francisco Institute</a> has endorsed Greenberg and Supervisor London Breed as equal first or second picks on the ranked-choice ballot. SPOSFI President Noni Richen wrote in an email that Greenberg “understands and supports small businesses.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sflogcabin.org/">Log Cabin Republicans of San Francisco</a> President Eugene Epshteyn compared Greenberg to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose election “dramatically transformed New York City into one of the safest, cleanest, and wealthiest cities in the nation. So too we San Franciscans should give a Republican candidate a chance to initiate real change instead of re-hatching the same failed policies of the current ruling party.”</p>
<p>Epstein said he wasn’t aware that Greenberg, a New York native, ran as a Democrat three years ago until speaking with the Public Press in April. But he downplayed the switch, saying, “A lot of people have changed parties over the years.”</p>
<p>“I think he has a long-shot chance,” Epstein said. “Most of the press … is ignoring him. So it’s very difficult for him to get his ideas out there.”</p>
<p>“I do realize that it’s an uphill battle for me,” Greenberg agreed. “But I believe that I can win based on the issues. I will absolutely win in a landslide if the voters en masse paid attention to the specific issues and listen to what each of the different candidates were saying.”</p>
<h2>‘Not an Extension of the Trump Administration’</h2>
<p>And even if he doesn’t become mayor, Greenberg said he’s keeping the Republican constituency visible.</p>
<p>“Just the mere fact that I’m a candidate running is forcing them to acknowledge reality that in San Francisco, the second-largest political party voting bloc are the Republicans,” he said. “And that we’re sick and tired, and have been sick and tired for a long time.”</p>
<p>But what about the Republican Party brand name, and how it’s been tarnished by President Donald Trump?</p>
<p>“National politics&nbsp;is different from local,” Greenberg said. “The San Francisco GOP, it shares the GOP, but it’s not really connected to the national GOP. We’re not an extension of the Trump administration here.”</p>
<p>How would he work with a Democratic Board of Supervisors that does not identify with Greenberg’s positions, or would not ally themselves with the GOP of 2018?</p>
<p>Greenberg said his goal would be to reach across the aisle and build coalitions, but if that failed, “We have to use the bully pulpit.”</p>
<p>“Mayor Lee, bless his soul, was not a strong mayor,” he said. “I will be a strong mayor.”</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/gop-mayoral-candidate-greenberg-aims-to-bring-more-centrist-viewpoint-to-city-hall#commentsGovernmentHousingBudgetElectionsPoliticsSan FranciscoHomelessnessHousing SolutionsaffordablecandidatesDemocratEd LeehomelessHomeward BoundlandlordsLog Cabin Republicansmayornavigation centersProposition FrentersRepublicanTrumpvotersMon, 21 May 2018 14:30:00 +00003147 at https://sfpublicpress.orgAndrew StelzerActivist Weiss Focuses Her Mayoral Campaign on Housing and Homelessnesshttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/activist-weiss-focuses-her-mayoral-campaign-on-housing-and-homelessness
<p><em><strong>Fourth in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates’ records and pledges on housing and homelessness.</strong></em></p>
<p>It’s her second mayoral race, but Amy Farah Weiss doesn’t rate in polls that have been released so far for the June 5 special election to fill the seat of the late Mayor Edwin Lee. She has no staff, has raised little money and won’t be seen on commercials or billboards. For Weiss, the election is about shining a light on the race, again and again, trained on the city’s homeless and affordable-housing crises – while proposing solutions to address both.</p>
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<p>Weiss is a bulldog. She shows up at mayoral debates uninvited, goes to obscure committee meetings at City Hall, talks and works with people in the city’s encampments, and has spent days driving around the most affected neighborhoods, counting the tents and vehicles being used as homes. At a <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11656710/san-francisco-mayoral-candidates-spar-at-lively-castro-debate">March debate</a> sponsored by KQED, she crashed the Castro Theatre stage and stood on the side, until the rowdy audience needled moderator Scott Shafer into letting her participate.</p>
<p>A stream of supporters praised her efforts on social media as the debate progressed. “She’s bringing issues before voters that other candidates aren’t,” wrote one. “The crasher is the clear winner,” said another.</p>
<p>In her heart, Weiss knows she’s unlikely to become the 44th mayor of San Francisco. What she is doing is putting forward a detailed and wonky set of proposals for tackling core issues — and trying to impart a sense of urgency.</p>
<p>“I’m saying this is a crisis,” Weiss, founder of <a href="http://www.saintfrancischallenge.org/">Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge</a>, said in a recent interview at the StrEat Food Park on Division Street, around the corner from where the city tore down a massive encampment of tents and cardboard-box shelters in 2016. “I want us all to think of the fact that 3,000 to 3,500 people are on the street without a toilet as a true crisis. Every night that people are out there, trauma is happening for every individual. But we’ve accepted it for years.”</p>
<p>Weiss’ platform would require that half of new multiunit housing developments be affordable, would set up new funding mechanisms to finance below-market rate units and would create a city loan program to help landlords add new units within existing residential buildings. She also wants to build thousands of small, one-person “transitional shelter” units — she’s <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2017-10/two-women-one-homeless-team-up-on-a-small-housing-experiment">already produced models</a> — to place around the city in <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2017-03/will-san-francisco-embrace-sanctioned-camps-for-the-homeless">small villages</a> as temporary housing for those now living on city streets.</p>
<p>Whoever gets elected to serve out the balance of Lee’s term will probably run for re-election to earn a full four-year term in November 2019. Weiss thinks the June winner should be held accountable for what she or he gets done over 18 months, so she developed a <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/vote123forequity">“tracking tool”</a> to help assess their record in office. It lists policy positions that largely match her own. She posted it online and asked voters to submit their opinions, but has received only 100 replies.</p>
<p>That limited response goes to the heart of what some progressives say about her campaign: that she isn’t part of any organization or coalition, her proposals aren’t new and her candidacy is an exercise in egoism.</p>
<p>Others are more charitable. Peter Cohen, co-director of the <a href="http://www.sfccho.org/">Council of Community Housing Organizations</a>, which represents the city’s nonprofit housing developers, said Weiss’ proposals may not be new, but are drawn from ideas that groups like his have been proposing for years.</p>
<p>Weiss said she doesn’t have to get elected mayor for her campaign to win; it’s enough to influence the debate.</p>
<p>“What I hear generally about my running is that: ‘She has really good ideas, but who does she think she is to run for mayor?’” Weiss said. “For me, if any of these ideas land, we’ve won.”</p>
<p>Here’s a rundown of the key elements of her platform:</p>
<h3>Address the Homeless Crisis</h3>
<p>Weiss, who ran in 2015 to unseat Lee, later founded Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge to create <a href="http://www.saintfrancischallenge.org/transitionalsleepandstorage/">tiny temporary homes</a> and place them on vacant lands. The group built a dozen wooden structures large enough for a single bed and storage space at a cost of $1,000 each. The units are on wheels and can easily be moved, but city crews destroyed most of them while clearing homeless encampments, she said.</p>
<p>Weiss said the city should stop rousting the encampments and instead identify sites where groups of these shelters could be placed in “villages” of different sizes, alongside shareable bathroom and cooking facilities. She calls these villages “Safe Organized Spaces,” and said they would provide the autonomy, security and privacy people need. They are intended to be transitional, used until people can move into permanent housing. Similar villages have been set up in Seattle, Portland, and other cities in the West.</p>
<h3>New Housing Development</h3>
<p>San Francisco developers are producing twice as much market-rate housing as is called for by state housing goals, according to a <a href="http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/20180510_HousingBalance6_BoS.pdf">report</a> from the city’s Planning Department. The vast bulk of it is unaffordable to most people who live in the city or are landing jobs in its tech-fueled employment boom, Cohen said. In 2016, the number of jobs in the city grew for the seventh straight year, increasing by 28,730 from 2015 to reach 703,230, according to a city <a href="http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2016CII.pdf">commerce report</a>.</p>
<p>The Planning Department report also found that the city is building far too little affordable housing for low- and middle-income workers. To change that, Weiss wants to ensure that half the apartments in new multiunit developments are affordable to a mix of low-income to moderate-income tenants – as defined by federal housing standards. They would pay no more than 30 percent of their income in rent.</p>
<p>She would entice developers to do this by creating new funding mechanisms. She would push the state to provide low-interest loans to developers, reducing their costs and enabling them to charge below-market rents to more tenants. She would fund this by persuading California leaders to devote some of the state’s $6.1 billion budget surplus to affordable housing or by floating regional or state housing bonds. She would also push for the city workers’ pension fund to divest $500 million of holdings in fossil fuels and invest it instead in affordable housing development.</p>
<p>She supports a measure being developed by the <a href="http://www.cohsf.org/">San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness</a> and allies that would impose a 0.5 percent tax on the portion of a business’s gross receipts that exceed $50 million. This would generate more than $300 million a year to build or rehab housing and provide rent subsidies to low-income tenants, help prevent people from becoming homeless and increase mental health services. The coalition said it plans to gather signatures and put the measure on the November ballot.</p>
<h3>‘In-Law’ Units and a Vacancy Tax</h3>
<p>According to the city, about 37,000 San Francisco homes have enough space to accommodate small “in-law” units that could be rented. Weiss wants the city to set up a financing program to make low-interest loans to owners who create such units and agree to keep rents low.</p>
<p>She also wants to impose a tax on housing units that are held vacant, as Supervisor Aaron Peskin proposed last year. SPUR, an urban planning think tank, <a href="http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/SPUR_Non-Primary_Residences.pdf">reported in 2014</a> that nearly 30,000 units in San Francisco were vacant, of which almost 9,100 were held off the market for seasonal or occasional use and 9,700 were kept vacant for other reasons. The remaining 11,000 were in the process of being rented or sold. “We need to use our empty units,” Weiss said.</p>
<p>She also supports a measure favored by Cohen’s organization that would give existing tenants and nonprofit groups the right of first refusal to purchase their own building if it is put up for sale.</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/activist-weiss-focuses-her-mayoral-campaign-on-housing-and-homelessness#commentsDemographicsGovernmentHousingBudgetWealth & povertyCivil & human rightsElectionsLand usePoliticsCommunity engagementEconomySan FranciscoHomelessnessHousing Solutionsevictionhomelessin-law unitlandlordsSaint Francis ChallengesheltertaxvacancyWed, 16 May 2018 14:25:00 +00003140 at https://sfpublicpress.orgRob WatersPublic Press Weekly: Look Ma, It’s Politicshttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/2018-05/public-press-weekly-look-ma-it%E2%80%99s-politics
<p>Horse race. Blood sport. Relay race. Full-court press. Hunger games.</p>
<p>Welcome to campaign season.</p>
<p>We’re in the run-up to the June 5 primary and special election, and city and state politics are in overdrive.</p>
<p>Here’s what’s up with a few of the San Francisco mayoral hopefuls and, heck, the body politic.</p>
<ul>
<li>Jane Kim’s all about expanding housing and reducing homelessness. Affordable housing is a key issue in her District 6 (TL, SoMa, Treasure Island), a patchwork of the rich and housed and the poor and unhoused. “<a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/as-mayor-kim-would-try-to-expand-inclusionary-housing-citywide">As Mayor, Kim Would Try to Expand Inclusionary Housing Citywide</a>” (San Francisco Public Press).</li>
<li>Mark Leno, the author of the city’s inclusionary housing law, is equally ambitious about homelessness – he wants to end it once and for all by 2020. Ah, the triumph of hope over experience. “<a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/in-mayoral-run-leno-promises-to-get-serious-about-affordable-housing-crisis">In Mayoral Run, Leno Promises to ‘Get Serious’ About Affordable Housing Crisis</a>” (San Francisco Public Press).</li>
<li>Several candidates (or their representative) spouted ideas on how to help the African-American community at a recent candidates’ forum hosted by three African-American political groups. Ideas ranged from the specific (reparations) to the vague (taking the city forward). “<a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/candidates-say-how-they-would-help-african-american-community">Candidates Say How They Would Help African-American Community</a>” (San Francisco Public Press).</li>
<li>The judges’ panel at the candidates’ forum turned into an “us vs. them” rhetorical slugfest as four state Superior Court judges, all up for re-election, matched wits with the four public defenders united in their aim to unseat the incumbents. “<a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/minority-challengers-wake-up-normally-sleepy-superior-court-races">Minority Challengers Wake Up Normally Sleepy Superior Court Races</a>” (San Francisco Public Press).</li>
<li>And speaking of talking specifics, a billboard has been sighted in which candidate Angela Alioto chalks up a win: “<a href="http://sfcitizen.com/blog/category/politics/">Accomplished. Housed 11,362 Homeless – Angela ALIOTO for Mayor</a>” (San Francisco Citizen). Guess there are no round numbers in the Alioto universe, a universe that is mapped out in “<a href="https://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/charting-120-years-of-aliotos-san-francisco">Charting 120 Years of Aliotos in San Francisco</a>” (move over cable cars and Rice-A-Roni) (San Francisco magazine).</li>
<li>In the first competitive mayoral race in 15 years, things can get down and dirty – or apocalyptic. Is San Francisco’s immortal soul really at risk, one might ask? Some apparently think so, with progressives battling moderates on issues like development and homelessness. “<a href="http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/05/05/sf-mayor-race-candidates-battle-soul-city/">San Francisco Mayoral Candidates Battle for ‘Soul’ of City</a>” (CBS/KPIX 5).</li>
<li>While living, breathing people are duking it out, politically speaking, ballot propositions are brawling, too. Propositions C and D would raise taxes on commercial property owners, but only one of these measures can win. “<a href="http://www.sfweekly.com/news/june-poison-pill-ballot-duel-looks-good-for-office-space-landlords/">June ‘Poison Pill’ Ballot Duel Looks Good for Office Space Landlords</a>” (SF Weekly).</li>
<li>A caveat for noncitizen voters who can now vote in school board elections – the feds. San Francisco plans to issue a warning in 51 languages to noncitizens before they register that U.S immigration officials can obtain voter registration information. “<a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/non-citizens-hoping-vote-sf-school-board-elections-get-immigration-warning/">Non-Citizens Voting in SF School Board Elections to Get Immigration Warning</a>” (San Francisco Examiner).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong><span style="font-size:16px;">About That Rent? It’s Still Too Damn High</span></strong></p>
<ul>
<li>San Francisco is a city of renters, mostly, but many of them are stressed out because of the possibility of ending up smack-dab on the street. “<a href="http://www.sfweekly.com/news/eviction-stress-reaches-far-and-wide-in-renter-heavy-s-f/">Eviction Stress Reaches Far and Wide in Renter-Heavy S.F.</a>” (SF Weekly).</li>
<li>These stressed-out renters have hope, though, in the guise of Proposition F, which is on the June ballot in San Francisco. Prop. F would guarantee legal help for anyone facing eviction, regardless of income. “<a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2018-04/proposition-f-free-legal-aid-for-tenants-facing-eviction">Proposition F: Free Legal Aid for Tenants Facing Eviction</a>” (San Francisco Public Press).</li>
<li>It’s not just the residential market being hammered by sky-high rents; the commercial section is feeling the pain, too. “<a href="http://www.sfweekly.com/news/castro-not-immune-to-retail-struggles/">Castro Not Immune to Retail Struggles</a>” (SF Weekly).</li>
<li>So, rents are ridiculous, housing prices are out of reach for most ordinary mortals, and the question is why, oh why? Some have ventured an answer — or five. “<a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11666284/5-reasons-californias-housing-costs-are-so-high">5 Reasons California's Housing Costs Are So High</a>” (CALmatters).</li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Short Takes on Toking</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li>So you’re aching to light that joint, but hey, not so fast. There are still rules out there in California, and here’s what they are. “<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/thebachelormen/to-toke-or-not-to-toke-9-questions-to-ask-before-2ejvl?utm_term=.vvLyP31V6%23.svAYDgN2j">To Toke or Not to Toke? 9 Questions to Ask Before Lighting Up in California</a>” (BuzzFeed).</li>
<li>About that ache — not all places are created equal in their numbers of pot shops. Here’s a list of the state’s hot spots. “<a href="https://herb.co/marijuana/news/california-cities-pot-shop-ratio-dispensaries">The 10 Cities in California With the Most Pot Shops</a>” (Herb).</li>
</ul>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2018-05/public-press-weekly-look-ma-it%E2%80%99s-politics#commentsPoliticsSan FranciscoTue, 15 May 2018 01:33:05 +00003141 at https://sfpublicpress.orgMichele AndersonAlioto Says Her Past ‘Housing First’ Plan Would End Homelessnesshttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/alioto-says-her-past-housing-first-plan-would-end-homelessness
<p><em><strong>Third in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates’ records and pledges on housing and homelessness.</strong></em></p>
<p>This is Angela Alioto’s third full-fledged attempt to crack City Hall Room 200, and the detractors of the feisty and charismatic civil rights attorney, former board president and aspiring second-generation mayor, dismiss her as a vestige of this city’s past — our very own Make San Francisco Great Again candidate.</p>
<p>Alioto’s response is typically pugnacious. She already made San Francisco great. What have <em>you</em> done?</p>
<p><a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/election2018june"><img alt="" src="/files/dome_online_logo.png" style="width: 180px; height: 143px; float: left; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-right: 20px;"></a></p>
<p>“We did it. It worked. They stopped it,” she said, referring to the city’s <a href="http://sfmayor.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/404-Ten%20Year%20Plan%20Anniversary%20Report%20-%20Final%20Draft.pdf">10-year plan</a> to “abolish chronic homelessness,” the crafting of which she oversaw in 2004 under former Mayor Gavin Newsom.&nbsp; She claims that, much to her chagrin, the late Mayor Ed Lee subsequently let the plan wither before cannibalizing its resources to, among other ends, shunt money away from housing for the homeless into housing for the general population. “The 10-year plan kind of fell off a cliff,” Alioto <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2014-10/promise-of-supportive-housing-for-homeless-faces-reality-of-short-supply">told the Public Press in 2014</a>. “The interest wasn’t there.”</p>
<p>That plan shifted the city’s official position on solving homelessness from “continuum of care” to “housing first.” And while the city hasn’t “abolished” chronic homelessness any more than it’s eradicated fog, the 10-year plan put thousands indoors. Alioto’s part in creating this plan explains the claim on her billboards that she “housed 11,362 homeless.” That’s the official tally of homeless people placed in permanent supportive housing between 2004 and 2014, per the <a href="https://sfbos.org/budget-legislative-analyst">Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office</a>.</p>
<p>“Let me stress something, right off the bat: The 10-year plan absolutely worked,” she said, citing a <a href="https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/51064-Supportive%20Housing%20Final%20BLA%20Report%2012.15.14.pdf">report</a> on supportive-housing stability. “The lack of recidivism was stunning: 94 percent. Ninety-four percent of those people are still there.</p>
<p>“We did it,” she repeated, before finding herself at a momentary loss for words. “If I could say it in Italian, it’d be much more powerful.”</p>
<p><em>Ovviamente!</em> But there’s the rub: For every homeless person housed in this city, many more were not housed. Between 2004 and 2014, San Francisco added a shade more than the 10-year plan’s goal of 3,000 additional units of permanent supportive housing. San Francisco currently has roughly 7,500 such units — with 1,300 in the pipeline — a tally of 971 units for every 100,000 city residents.</p>
<h2>Lee Accused of ‘Taking Away Housing’</h2>
<p>And this encapsulates San Francisco’s conundrum well. That’s both not nearly enough and is a higher ratio than any other city in the nation. San Francisco’s homeless population appears to have barely budged during the past decade and change, during which the city spent billions of dollars addressing the problem.</p>
<p>Alioto blames the Lee administration for “taking away housing we had in the pipeline” earmarked for the chronically homeless and, instead, using it to pad affordable-housing totals. She also faulted Lee, who died in December with two years remaining in his second term, for shifting funding into temporary shelters and treatment programs. This, she said, was ultimately self-defeating. After treatment people still had no housing and faced the maddening prospect of street life.</p>
<p>“We’re putting people back on the streets where they came from,” she said. “You might as well throw your money away.</p>
<p>“Navigation centers are the same thing,” she added. “There’s nowhere to go. If I put you back on the street, I might as well throw my money away.”</p>
<p>Alioto said she was distraught to learn that the navigation centers are only temporary, occupying sites waiting to be developed. “I just learned that like two months ago,” she said in March. “I thought they’d be there for good. I am not for any navigation center that doesn't have an exit plan. Period.”</p>
<h2>Housing Record And Plan Less Specific</h2>
<p>Last year, <a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/homelessness/solutions/2017-10/no-vacancy-for-the-homeless">the Public Press determined</a> that “fewer than a quarter of the nearly 1,200 people who entered the first two navigation centers have been placed in verified long-term housing.” While hundreds of homeless people accepted one-way bus tickets to go live with family or friends elsewhere, this came with “no guarantee of stability and minimal follow-up.”</p>
<p>Alioto’s record and plans are less defined with regard to housing than with homelessness. She wants the city to “go back to paying people’s rent before they get evicted,” which would be more compassionate and cost-effective than ministering to evicted people living on the streets. And she calls for an added emphasis on getting the newly homeless indoors within three months, “before the brain starts to deteriorate.”</p>
<p>To help stabilize middle-class residents, she said she would push for more mixed-use projects and municipal investment in workforce housing for teachers and other key professions. And in a challenge to one of the city’s most entrenched bureaucracies, she would take aim at reforming the building permit process, which she called “corrupt.”</p>
<p>Like Lee, Alioto vowed to build 5,000 housing units per year — a goal the late mayor routinely missed. A mayor can do only so much, at least on paper, to influence the housing market. Alioto shook her head at that notion.</p>
<h2>Let's Make a Deal</h2>
<p>A mayor can do plenty more than what’s on paper, she insisted: “People wheel and deal.”</p>
<p>When asked where the additional money would come from to pay for her reimplementation of the 10-year, housing first plan, Alioto said the city wouldn’t need any. She pointed to the $250 million the city spends on homelessness, and to the total budget, which tops $10 billion a year. “I don’t think they understand what that is,” she said of the other mayoral candidates. “One billion is one-thousand million dollars. And we’ve got $10 billion! I don’t think they have any comprehension of money.”</p>
<p>But few people have any comprehension of how much it costs to build housing in San Francisco, which can range from nearly $500,000 per unit to more than $700,000. The city, furthermore, pays top dollar, getting no breaks on land or union labor.</p>
<p>If the city manages to build significant amounts of housing for the homeless using only funds Alioto now says are being wasted, it would be a development that is equal parts miraculous and horrifying.</p>
<h2>Opposed Wiener's Failed Bill on ‘Upzoning’</h2>
<p>Not surprisingly, Alioto, an ostensible Westside favorite, was adamantly against Sen. Scott Wiener’s vanquished <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB827">SB 827</a>, which would have removed much local zoning authority to make room for denser housing construction. Unlike other candidates who danced around the possibilities of raising height limits (“upzoning”) in the city’s leafier neighborhoods in return for developer concessions, Alioto said you simply “cannot have these small dwellings and a 10-story building slammed next to them. You cannot do that to the city, just because, this minute, you think you need density and height.”</p>
<p>What’s more, “<a href="http://www.aliotoformayor.com/">As mayor</a> I would never take away a powerful tool like zoning power and give it to the state. Never.”</p>
<p>Wiener’s bill may be dead, at least for now. But the appeal of such statements to voters, particularly on the city’s Westside, lives on.</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/alioto-says-her-past-housing-first-plan-would-end-homelessness#commentsDemographicsGovernmentHousingPublic healthBudgetTreatmentCivil & human rightsElectionsLand usePoliticsCommunity engagementBayview-Hunters PointSan FranciscoTenderloinWest of Twin PeaksHomelessnessHousing Solutionsaffordabilityevictionshomelessnesnavigation centersrentSB 827supportive housingupzoningZoningMon, 14 May 2018 14:04:00 +00003137 at https://sfpublicpress.orgJoe EskenaziMinority Challengers Wake Up Normally Sleepy Superior Court Raceshttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/minority-challengers-wake-up-normally-sleepy-superior-court-races
<p><span style="font-size:16px;"><strong><em>Four public defenders unite in bid to oust incumbents they see as vestiges of&nbsp; a ‘broken system’</em></strong></span></p>
<p><em><strong>Second of two articles</strong></em></p>
<p>When Niki Solis addressed the audience at the May 5 candidate forum on African-American issues, she did so peripatetically, striding about like the trial attorney she is. The head attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender’s office was on the offensive, laser-focused on her jury — voters. And the case she was making was her own.</p>
<p>Solis is one of four public defenders — all men and women of color — running to unseat four state <a href="https://sfsuperiorcourt.org/">Superior Court</a> judges. Again and again, they told the audience of several dozen at the “Facing the Voters” forum that they were out to fix a broken system in which minorities are disproportionately targeted and given longer sentences. African-Americans make up less than 6 percent of San Francisco’s population but occupy 55 percent of county jail cells. The challengers portrayed the incumbents — all GOP appointees, though none are registered Republicans — as vestiges of this system.</p>
<p><a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/election2018june"><img alt="" src="/files/dome_online_logo.png" style="width: 180px; height: 143px; float: left; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-right: 20px;"></a></p>
<p>“My kids, because of what we look like, are 10 times more likely to be convicted of a crime,” said Solis, who is pitted against nine-year-veteran Judge Jeffrey Ross, a Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee.</p>
<p>“My African-American kids are seven times more likely to be arrested,” added another public defender, Kwixuan Maloof, who is running against Judge Cynthia Ming-mei Lee, the first Asian-American woman presiding judge in San Francisco and a Pete Wilson appointee. Maria Evangelista, a felony trial attorney who is challenging Judge Curtis Karnow, said that “members of our own communities should be the arbiters of our freedom.” Elizabeth Zareh, a temporary Superior Court judge and Assessment Appeals Board commissioner, is also running for this seat. The Tehran-born attorney said that, if elected, she would be the court’s first Muslim judge.</p>
<h2>‘Remember what judges can and cannot do’</h2>
<p>“We need to fix this system, and these people are, unfortunately, part of that system,” said public defender Phoenix Streets. He is challenging Judge Andrew Cheng, a 2009 Schwarzenegger appointee who received notoriety last year with a <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Notorious-SF-landlord-slapped-with-3-5-million-12312571.php">record-breaking damage award</a> against notorious city landlord <a href="https://www.antievictionmap.com/anne-kihagi-ana-swain/">Anne Kihagi</a>. (That earned him an endorsement from the left-leaning San Francisco Tenants Union.)</p>
<p>For Karnow in particular, it all became too much.</p>
<p>“With respect to issues affecting the African-American community in a legal context, remember what judges can and cannot do,” said Karnow, who wrote the <a href="https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://duckduckgo.com/&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1013&amp;context=bjcl">law-journal article</a> that became the basis for opposition to the money-bail system and who developed and teaches the court’s implicit-bias program. He did not appear to relish being portrayed as the avatar of institutional racism.</p>
<p>“Judges are not in charge of policing policy and who gets arrested and who doesn’t get arrested,” said Karnow. “If that is your concern, you need to become a politician and address the issues.”</p>
<p>Karnow, who gained public prominence by <a href="https://archives.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/judge-issues-favorable-ruling-in-ccsfs-quest-to-retain-accreditation/Content?oid=2917035">ruling against the state accrediting body</a> that was attempting to shutter City College, ridiculed the notion that judges could, of their own volition, just stop instituting bail.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t work that way. You need to have a motion. You need to have somebody” file a lawsuit, he said, glancing across the room at his adversaries. “Maybe it should have been one of you, a long time ago, to bring a case. It never happened. Finally it did, and we are making progress.”</p>
<h2>Rare to Have Challengers</h2>
<p>After being appointed by the governor, Superior Court judges, who hear criminal, civil and family cases, must subsequently run to hold on to their seats for six more years. But, barring negligence, wrongdoing or unpopular rulings, it is unusual for a sitting judge to face an electoral challenge — and rarer that he or she is defeated — let alone a challenge as organized as the one mounted by the quartet from the <a href="http://sfpublicdefender.org/">Public Defender's Office</a>. In response, the incumbents have <a href="https://www.justicesf.com/">united as a slate</a> to keep their seats.</p>
<p>Unlike the forum’s opening session on the mayor’s race (Board of Supervisors President London Breed skipped it, and former state senator Mark Leno and District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim sent proxies) or the congressional debate that followed (Rep. Nancy Pelosi deployed an aide as her surrogate), all of the judicial candidates showed up on a Saturday morning to plead their cases to voters. It was the most compelling, taut, and adversarial section of the day’s program at the Kanbar Performing Arts Center, which was organized by African-American community groups and hosted and moderated by the Public Press. (See “<a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/candidates-say-how-they-would-help-african-american-community">Candidates Say How They Would Help African-American Community</a>”)</p>
<p>Cheng questioned the wisdom of running against judges who are “impartial and fair and doing a good job.” This, he claimed, could lead judges to “check the political winds before they rule.” In a more conservative part of the country, he noted, this would lead to more conservative rulings — which, presumably, San Franciscans would be displeased with and feel is a politicization of the judiciary.</p>
<p>Cheng’s would-be replacement rejected that argument.</p>
<p>“We have a constitutional right to elect judges,” Streets said flatly. “Judicial seats are political seats. So we’re not injecting anything that’s not already there. Is it political to point out African-Americans are arrested at higher rates? Is it political to say that African-Americans have to wait in custody longer for resolution or are handed out longer sentences? Those are facts. That’s why I’m running.”</p>
<h2>‘Politics Has Been Injected Here’</h2>
<p>Karnow, again, objected. “They are saying we have Republican values because we were appointed by Republican governors,” said Karnow, who was placed on the bench by Schwarzenegger in 2005 and ran unopposed in 2012. “I am a lifelong Democrat. We have the endorsements of the Democratic County Central Committee and all the leading Democratic institutions. The suggestion is false, and they have been called out for trying to politicize this.” Added Lee, “When I was appointed 20 years ago, I’d never met Pete Wilson. And I’ve never met him since. This is political only in the sense that politics has been injected here.”</p>
<p>The disagreements were sharp, though, with one exception, the actual performances of the sitting judges did not come up in the discussion. The sole instance was when Maloof noted that Ross put away one of his clients for 25 years to life, a sentence that was later overturned on appeal. No one went into further detail about that case.</p>
<p>Cheng stuck up for his colleague: “Implicit bias is about people who don’t see. These judges see people. Especially Judge Ross.” Ross noted that he was the judge who tossed out felony charges in a recent incident in which two police officers charged at and shot a mentally ill black man standing on his front steps — a ruling, Ross noted, that did survive on appeal.</p>
<p>The Bar Association of San Francisco ranked Karnow, Lee and Cheng “exceptionally well-qualified,” its highest rating. Ross was deemed “well-qualified.” Challengers Evangelista and Solis were also ranked “well-qualified.” Maloof was rated “qualified,” and Zareh “not qualified” — a slight <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-bar-association-rates-candidates-in-judicial-12889516.php">she complained</a> was due to her “ethnicity and country of origin,” Iran. The bar deemed Streets “not recommended for appointment or election at this time.”</p>
<p>In the end, the only point of accord may have been the most fundamental one: Regardless of how anyone feels about it, the choice of who will be a judge and who will not rests with one body.</p>
<p>“Here’s the beauty of it,” Solis told the audience. “As voters, you get to decide who your judges will be. It’s up to you.”</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/minority-challengers-wake-up-normally-sleepy-superior-court-races#commentsDemographicsGovernmentImmigrationCivil & human rightsCrimeElectionsPoliticsSan FranciscoAfrican-Americanattorneybailbar associationbiasDemocratIranjailjudgeslandlordsMuslimpublic defenderRepublicansuperior courtWed, 09 May 2018 19:00:00 +00003133 at https://sfpublicpress.orgJoe EskenaziAs Mayor, Kim Would Try to Expand Inclusionary Housing Citywidehttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/as-mayor-kim-would-try-to-expand-inclusionary-housing-citywide
<p><strong><em>Second in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates’ records and pledges on housing and homelessness.</em></strong></p>
<p>In a Dickensian touch, Jane Kim’s District 6 is home to the city’s wealthiest and poorest ZIP codes.</p>
<p>This swath of the city, which includes the Tenderloin, SoMa and Treasure Island, is the eye of San Francisco’s affordability storm. High-rise condo and office towers are mushrooming. The vast majority of recent housing has risen there: 25,658 units were built citywide between 2007 and 2016, with 15,541 of them in District 6. It is the beating heart of the city’s ascendant tech economy.</p>
<p>And through it all, the vast majority of single-room occupancy hotels and supportive housing beds are there, too. District 6 is also the beating heart of this city’s marginalized communities.</p>
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<p>Kim, an ambitious politician who in 2016 fell short in her battle with Scott Wiener for Mark Leno’s termed-out state Senate seat, has played an active role in the transformation of her district — and, by virtue of its outsize role in city housing and homeless issues, the city writ large.</p>
<p>She has focused much of her political energy on inclusionary housing — city programs mandating a percentage of apartments in new developments be set aside at below-market rates. She bandied about the catch-phrase “40 is the new 30” after extracting not 30, but 40 percent affordability ratios on several high-profile mega-projects, including the <a href="https://sf.curbed.com/2016/12/1/13809968/mission-rock-sea-level-giants-sf">San Francisco Giants’ Mission Rock waterfront development</a> and the <a href="http://www.hearst.com/newsroom/hearst-sells-portions-of-5m-project-to-development-partner-forest-city">5M mixed-use towers</a> on land owned by the Hearst Corp. That set a new standard. A major component of Kim’s brand is her ability as a dealmaker and proven success in landing gaudy affordability ratios in major projects — a claim none of her rivals can make.</p>
<h2>Can District Dealmaking Lead to Citywide Policy?</h2>
<p>But a key question is whether Kim’s ability to wring concessions out of the biggest developers will translate into a coherent housing policy on a citywide level. Much of Kim’s work on the Board of Supervisors and in her district has been about maximizing developers’ contributions to affordable housing and neighborhood projects. But the Giants and other large developers enabling her “<a href="https://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/how-supervisor-kims-new-affordability-law-lets-developers-the-hook">40 is the new 30</a>” mantra can acquiesce to city affordability demands that lesser entities cannot.</p>
<p>Away from the glittering towers of SoMa, Kim is calling for an easing of rules governing the building of additional dwelling units in homes — in-law apartments, essentially. “One of my staffers built one, and it cost $200,000,” she said, incredulous at the high price tag. Pare that number back, she said, and the city could add some 40,000 rent-controlled units just like that. (Kim credits Wiener for legislation in this area.)</p>
<p>Kim would also like to reform the process of financing private infrastructure projects. Developers’ inability to pay for such work is what keeps tens of thousands of approved units in the pipeline instead of actually being built. In a more splashy move, she proposed a $1 billion affordable housing bond — a suggestion she dropped, out of left field, at a board committee hearing earlier this year — but doesn’t foresee it going before voters before 2020.</p>
<h2>Nuances of Housing Policy</h2>
<p>The old political saw is that “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.” And squaring several of Kim’s positions regarding where to build housing, and how much, requires a great deal of explaining.</p>
<p>At an April City Hall rally, Kim crowned herself “the queen of density and upzoning in District 6.” But, <a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/bid-west-side-support-jane-kim-announces-opposition-housing-density-bill/">one month earlier</a>, she struck a different tone during a rally held in cozy District 7 at West Portal Station. There, Kim launched fusillades against the increased height limits and density that would have been allowed under <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB827">SB 827</a>, the failed state Senate legislation by her bête noire, Wiener. She described it as a sop to developers, who would not have been required to build a higher percentage of affordable housing or offset the infrastructure and transit pressures brought about by taller, denser communities.</p>
<p>In Kim’s mind, enabling taller, denser buildings in District 6 and calling out attempts to do so in District 7 are not incongruous. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t upzone the Westside,” she said, grinning, during an interview afterward. “I did say SB 827 was the wrong way to upzone.”</p>
<p>In Kim’s mind, it’s a giveaway to developers to permit taller buildings than current zoning rules would allow without extracting additional monies and concessions. “I have been consistent,” she insisted. “If I do upzone the Westside, it’d be through the local planning process, like the <a href="http://sf-planning.org/central-soma-plan">Central SoMa Plan</a>.”</p>
<p>But Kim has come under fire for supporting a plan, which, in its current iteration, would add some 40,000 new jobs to her district but only 7,000 housing units. Critics bemoan her attempts to curtail housing density on the Westside while simultaneously complaining that housing needs to be built somewhere other than SoMa. (The Planning Department is set to approve <a href="http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2011.1356EMTZU_Central%20SoMa.pdf">the plan </a>Thursday, May 10, then send it to the Board of Supervisors for final approval.)</p>
<h2>Central SoMa Plan ‘Not Going to Stay the Same’</h2>
<p>“The Central SoMa plan is not going to stay the same,” she said matter-of-factly. “This is the Planning Department’s proposal. I put my name on it because it’s my district. Mayor Mark Farrell put his name on it. I don’t know how much he knows about Central SoMa.”</p>
<p>By affixing her name to the plan, Kim said she has a greater ability to alter it. An environmental impact report will study the feasibility of adding 1,600 units, but that’s still far short of a healthy jobs-housing balance. “I don’t think it’s fair to talk jobs-housing balance in one area plan. We have to look citywide,” she said. “We’re not building offices on the Westside.”</p>
<p>Kim said she hopes to raise the heights on eight or nine SoMa parcels and build more market-rate and affordable housing. “In everything I do, conferring more density and height on a parcel has to come with a higher percentage of affordable housing,” she said.</p>
<p>Finally, adding housing means little to those unable to keep the housing they’ve got, which is why Kim sponsored “Eviction Protections 2.0,” legislation the Board of Supervisors passed in 2015. This ordinance took aim at what Kim calls “nuisance evictions” and what tenants’ rights advocates label “sham evictions”: leaving a stroller in the hallway, hanging laundry off the fire escape, adding a new roommate or caretaker. Kim takes credit for being the first mayoral candidate to embrace this year’s <a href="http://sfgov.org/elections/sites/default/files/Documents/candidates/Legal_Text_No_Eviction_Without_Representation.pdf">Proposition F</a>, the “City-Funded Legal Representation for Residential Tenants in Eviction Lawsuits” measure on the June 5 ballot. (See “<a href="https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2018-04/proposition-f-free-legal-aid-for-tenants-facing-eviction">Proposition F: Free Legal Aid for Tenants Facing Eviction</a>”)</p>
<h2>Health and Homelessness Solutions</h2>
<p>When Kim served as acting mayor a few years ago, she decided to make a splash by <a href="https://archives.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/supervisor-spends-night-in-homeless-shelter-finds-incredible-love/Content?oid=2192150">spending a night in a homeless shelter</a>. It turned out to be a seminal moment for her approach to homelessness. Kim, who is now 40, said she was, far and away, the youngest person there. “This shelter was built for someone like me,” she said. “Young and able-bodied, but down on my luck.”</p>
<p>But that describes an increasingly smaller portion of the city’s homeless population. People living on San Francisco streets today are older and sicker, a trend that is growing.</p>
<p>The overarching goal of a Mayor Kim would be to treat homelessness more like a public health crisis than an economic problem, carving out a more primary role for the Department of Public Health and a lesser one for the Human Services Agency. “HSA has been very effective addressing homelessness and poverty with people whose barrier is a job or some kind of economic need,” she said. “But they are not as effective for people who have, on top of that, mental health issues or other illnesses affecting them.”</p>
<p>That was Kim’s thinking as supervisor when she advocated for inclusion of nurses at adult shelters, pushed for a doubling the number of medical respite beds in SoMa and supported full medical and mental health surveys being performed at all shelters (and the county jail) to better understand who we’re serving (and locking up). While the city’s homeless numbers have been remarkably consistent over the decades, just who is on the streets is changing. Kim said this calls for a change in strategy.</p>
<p>Because it’s costly to house and treat the old and chronically ill, new funds — lots — are needed. Building or securing housing has become prohibitively expensive, and <a href="http://sfpublicpress.org/news/homelessness/solutions/2017-10/no-vacancy-for-the-homeless">obtaining SRO hotel rooms for the needy</a> costs more than twice as much now than it did a decade ago. “We’re in the same market as everyone else,” Kim noted.</p>
<p>On top of all that, Kim hopes to expand mental health services and medical treatments tying into the opioid epidemic. This would mean upping the number of Department of Public Health workers ministering to the homeless. And, while she’s at it, she wants to increase the number of street cleaners. She acknowledges this is going to cost quite a bit more money, and will require additional revenues (read: fees and taxes). And, sans help from the state and federal government, homelessness is not getting “solved.” Period.</p>
<p>“San Francisco can never resolve the homeless crisis on its own,” Kim said. “But we can make a dent. We are a wealthy city. We need to generate new revenue. And all the tax cuts Trump put into effect, we should be recapturing.”</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/as-mayor-kim-would-try-to-expand-inclusionary-housing-citywide#commentsEmploymentGovernmentHousingBudgetWealth & povertyElectionsLand usePoliticsSan FranciscoSouth of Market (SoMa)TenderloinHomelessnessHousing SolutionsBay Area Smart GrowthaffordabilitydevelopersevictionHearsthomelesshousinginclusionaryJane Kimmental healthMission RockplanningpropositionSB 827SoMatenantsupzoningWed, 09 May 2018 15:00:18 +00003131 at https://sfpublicpress.orgJoe EskenaziCandidates Say How They Would Help African-American Communityhttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/candidates-say-how-they-would-help-african-american-community
<p><em><strong>First of two articles</strong></em></p>
<p>San Francisco’s African-American population is melting away like polar ice. The tally of every last black person in this city is only slightly larger than the draw for a Giants game at AT&amp;T Park.</p>
<p>African-Americans, then, are a population that’s easy for candidates to overlook in a citywide race — which has been proven, time and again, throughout this city’s history. So, on Saturday morning, a trio of African-American organizations aimed to get some answers from aspiring local leaders. <a href="http://www.sfbcm.org/">San Francisco Black Community Matters</a>, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BLFSF/">San Francisco Black Leadership Forum</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BlackYoungDemocratsSF/">Black Young Democrats</a> sponsored “Facing the Voters,” a candidates’ forum hosted by the Public Press and moderated by its publisher, Lila LaHood. Candidates for mayor, 12th Congressional District, District 8 supervisor and state Superior Court attended.</p>
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<p>Mayoral candidates <a href="https://www.aliotoformayor.com/">Angela Alioto</a>, a civil rights lawyer and former city supervisor; <a href="http://www.richiegreenberg.org/">Richie Greenberg</a>, a Republican small-business owner; homelessness activist <a href="https://www.weissformayor.com/">Amy Farah Weiss</a>, and public-health social worker <a href="https://www.ellenleezhouformayor2018.com/">Ellen Lee Zhou</a> showed up to answer questions about issues of interest to the city’s African-American community. Former supervisor, assemblyman and state senator <a href="http://www.markleno.com/">Mark Leno</a> and District 6 Supervisor <a href="https://www.janekim.org/">Jane Kim</a> designated African-American women as surrogates —Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai and Kaylah Williams, respectively.</p>
<p>Board of Supervisors President <a href="https://www.londonformayor.com/">London Breed</a>, the only African-American candidate in the race, did not attend. As the forum was beginning at 9:30 a.m., she fired off a <a href="https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/992802771354046464">tweet</a> urging residents to join her at a concurrent job fair. She did not send a representative to speak on her behalf.</p>
<p>District 8 challenger Rafael Mandelman showed up, but incumbent Supervisor Jeff Sheehy did not, nor did he send a surrogate.</p>
<p>All candidates were given the opportunity to lay out their bona fides with respect to this city’s dwindling, marginalized African-American community; some did that and some did not. Weiss called for “economic justice and reparations”; Alioto noted that, as a litigator, she won a $121 million judgment for more than a dozen black employees of the bakery company that produces Wonder Bread, Twinkies, and Hostess Cakes — the largest civil rights verdict in history at that time.</p>
<p>Other candidates spoke more generally. Williams, Kim’s surrogate, rolled out the anodyne catchphrase “let’s take our city back by taking it forward.” Zhou described herself as a “people person” who “wants to take all the money back and give it back to you.”</p>
<p>Alioto, when asked what the No. 1 issue facing black San Franciscans is today, bemoaned that minority-contracting requirements she helped craft during her tenure on the board in the 1990s are not being followed. If they had been, she conjectured, “maybe we would not have lost so many” minorities. “Maybe we’d be a totally different city today and wouldn’t have had to welcome in 100,000 new people working in the tech industry because our people would have been working.”</p>
<p>Williams cited Kim’s three most important issues as displacement, the affordability crisis and homelessness. Weiss took things a shade further — and more eclectic — by calling for a “Summer of Love and Logic” in dealing with disproportionate black homelessness. A start, she said, would be to take the $34 million it would cost to enact Breed’s suggestion of putting 200 new police officers on the streets and, instead, invest that money in the city’s hardest-up neighborhoods. Weiss also called on diverting the half-billion dollars the city’s pension fund is investing in fossil fuel companies into “low-risk development” of affordable housing to be constructed by San Franciscans.</p>
<p>Weiss also had one of the more crowd-pleasing moments for the Saturday a.m. audience of several dozen when she was asked what this city should do about the snowballing toxic-soil scandal at the former Hunters Point Shipyard. The traditionally black, working-class neighborhood has been plagued by generations of environmental degradation, and <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Two-sentenced-for-falsifying-reports-on-soil-12886564.php">faked radiation testing</a> could imperil some 12,500 planned housing units, while hundreds of units may already have been built atop potentially toxic soil.</p>
<p>“We should hold Nancy Pelosi accountable, we should hold Dianne Feinstein accountable, we should hold Kamala Harris accountable. They are our representatives in federal government,” she said.</p>
<p>Environmental justice at the former shipyard has been a yearlong Sisyphean struggle for Leno’s proxy, Sumchai, who noted that “I pledged my commitment to Mark with a clear understanding he would promote and advance environmental health and justice in Bayview-Hunters Point.” She called for harsh legal action, which the litigator Alioto agreed with. Also agreeing, surprisingly, was Greenberg, the lone Republican. “This will be one of the rare instances when I agree with everybody else here,” he said. “We need a moratorium [on development on the land] and need to bring those accountable to justice.” He added, however, that “the mayor can't just snap his fingers and say do this housing somewhere else.”</p>
<p>The evaporation of the lion’s share of this city’s approved, in-the-pipeline housing units remains a looming disaster unaddressed by any of the major mayoral candidates.</p>
<p>When asked what this city could do to counter the disproportionately high percentage of African-Americans living on the street, the candidates recited more general homeless strategies. Alioto, the driving force behind this city’s 2004 10-year plan to “abolish chronic homelessness,” noted that this strategy led to 4,600 chronically homeless individuals being housed before the city essentially defunded the plan in 2012. Greenberg called for a declaration of emergency, FEMA-style trailers to house the homeless and donations to other cities so they can minister to their homeless populations and keep them from coming here.</p>
<p>Weiss called for redirecting money from the Department of Public Works’ street-cleaning budget and from funding police sweeps of tent encampments to a “triage approach.” Zhou, who began nearly every answer with “you are talking to the right person,” said she would “eliminate homelessness by having no homeless on the streets.”</p>
<p>The homeless are “talented people who have skills,” she said.&nbsp; Unfortunately, “the Board of Supervisors gives them drugs and says drugs are OK. … We need a new policy that tells them to get off welfare and live life for themselves. Do not let politicians abuse them!”</p>
<p>Following the mayoral forum, the candidates for the 12th Congressional District took the floor: Lawyer and author <a href="https://www.takingtheredpill.org/">Michael Goldstein</a>; Trevor Martin, campaign director for employee-lawyer <a href="https://jaffe4congress.com/">Stephen Jaffe</a>; public-interest litigator and organizer <a href="https://www.shahidforchange.us/meet-shahid.html">Shahid Buttar</a>, and Immigrant Rights Commission member <a href="https://www.khojastehforcongress.com/">Ryan Khojasteh</a> all painted the 15-term incumbent, Rep. <a href="https://pelosi.house.gov/">Nancy Pelosi</a>, as a business-friendly leader who has overseen crushing political defeats for Democrats and ever-plunging federal housing budgets.</p>
<p>Alex Lazar, a Pelosi congressional aide appearing in her stead, disagreed, portraying his boss as a deft “herder of cats.” He dismissed her left-leaning opponents’ lamentations about Pelosi’s corporatism.</p>
<p>“Guess what? It’s a conservative country, y’all! San Francisco values get used against us,” he said. “Going down the middle seems to be what gets work done against the Trump administration.”</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/candidates-say-how-they-would-help-african-american-community#commentsCivicsDemographicsEnvironmental policyHousingPublic healthImmigrationCivil & human rightsElectionsLand usePoliticsCommunity engagementBayview-Hunters PointSan FranciscoHomelessnessHousing SolutionsaffordabilityAfrican AmericanblackcandidatescongressdisplacementForumHunters PointissueslawyerNancy PelosiradiationtoxicvotersTue, 08 May 2018 01:45:14 +00003129 at https://sfpublicpress.orgJoe EskenaziIn Mayoral Run, Leno Promises to ‘Get Serious’ About Affordable Housing Crisishttps://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/in-mayoral-run-leno-promises-to-get-serious-about-affordable-housing-crisis
<p><strong><em>First in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates' records and pledges on housing and homelessness.</em></strong></p>
<p>In 2002, Supervisor Mark Leno, a Willie Brown appointee, introduced San Francisco’s first inclusionary-housing ordinance, which requires developers to build below-market-rate apartments or pay a hefty fee.</p>
<p>It passed, 11-0, and Mayor Brown signed it into law. “For-profit developers, nonprofit developers, bicyclists, neighborhood advocates” and others “met in my office every week with the city attorney,” Leno recalled recently. “I took it to the board and it passed.” As a result, a shade under 3,000 below-market-rate units have been built.</p>
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<p>A generation ago, mandating developers to fund and build affordable housing was a controversial matter. Now it’s taken for granted and rattled off as one of the key legislative achievements attained by a progressive Board of Supervisors in its decadelong run starting in 2000. But, on a board featuring <a href="http://sfpublicdefender.org/about/matt-gonzalez/">Matt Gonzalez</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Daly">Chris Daly</a>, <a href="http://www.tomammiano.com/">Tom Ammiano</a> and <a href="https://sfbos.org/supervisor-peskin">Aaron Peskin</a>, Leno wasn’t seen as a “progressive,” per se. Asked why he carried this legislation, he shrugged and offered his signature smile: “I was attentive to an important issue and ran with it.”</p>
<p>The city Supervisor Leno oversaw had, in his words, “a housing problem.” The city awaiting <a href="http://www.markleno.com/">a potential Mayor Leno</a> has “a housing crisis.” Through the Board of Supervisors and voters, the inclusionary requirements he initiated have jumped from 12 percent to 19 percent. At the same time, the definition of “affordable” has expanded from those earning barely half the area median income to people earning 120 percent of it —&nbsp;or more. (Area median income is nearly $81,000 for a single individual and $115,300 for a family of four.)</p>
<h2>Affordable Housing Now ‘for Almost All of Us’</h2>
<p>“Fewer than 10 percent of San Franciscans can purchase market-rate housing. Only 15 percent can afford to rent,” Leno said. “This used to be a problem for, quote, unquote, those people. Now those people represent almost all of us. When you talk about affordable housing today, you’re talking about housing for almost all of us.”</p>
<p>As the father of San Francisco <a href="http://sfmohcd.org/inclusionary-housing-program">inclusionary housing</a>, Leno is proud of his achievement and wants to move it forward. For those who argue this city’s hefty affordability requirements are retarding construction, he can only offer his ever-present smile and a shake of the head.</p>
<p>“If there’s a drop in project applications, from the developers I’ve spoken with it’s not based on another percentage or two” of affordability requirements, Leno contended. “Rather, it’s the cost of labor, the shortage of labor, the escalating cost of land and the fact they are competing with Google and other massive corporations proposing enormous projects who can outbid everybody, every time.”</p>
<p>Leno, in fact, sees greater inclusionary extractions as a way forward; he calls for mandatory higher percentages for developers “building on transit corridors or city-owned parcels.” As such, Leno was dubious of <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB827">SB 827</a>, the dead-for-now bill penned by his Democratic protégé and successor, Sen. Scott Wiener. “There will be value added with all of this upzoning, so how do we recapture some of that value for the greater public good?” he asked. “But the bigger question is whether a ‘one size fits all’ land-use policy that is this far-reaching makes sense in a state as diverse as California.”</p>
<h2>A Pledge to Build More, but Where?</h2>
<p>Leno’s mayoral pledge calls for “building dramatically more housing.” But it’s vague about exactly where to do so — and no serous candidate overtly calls for building less or the same amount of housing. Leno desires a Bay Area-wide “comprehensive housing and homelessness bond measure.” But that would be a complex, multijurisdictional matter beyond the immediate control of Leno or any future mayor.</p>
<p>Leno’s most tangible legislative successes — and bitterest defeats — centered on fights to keep renters in their homes. As a novice assemblyman in 2005, he sponsored a bill exempting single-room occupancy hotels from the Ellis Act, which was intended to allow landlords exiting the rental business to empty their buildings.</p>
<p>Leno’s measure passed by one vote, helped by a Republican who had spent time in an SRO hotel as a child. Some 13,500 San Franciscans reside in SRO hotels, and this bill denied a cudgel to owners and speculators wishing to evict them en masse.</p>
<p>Leno’s Ellis Act battle on behalf of the general population has been more quixotic. He was unable to win San Francisco local control over its provisions and could not close loopholes in a law ostensibly intended for aging landlords hoping to retire from the rental business — but, all too often, exploited by bad actors.</p>
<h2>Taking Aim at Ellis Act Evictors, Speculators</h2>
<p>He pledged that as mayor he would take serial Ellis Act evictors to court. “We are losing too much valuable housing to speculators looking for a quick profit,” he said. But the law allows speculators to do an awful lot. And, as Leno knows well, changing state law is no easy feat.</p>
<p>As a supervisor, assemblyman and senator, Leno created and endorsed measures meant to ease the lives of homeless people. He obtained funding for the city’s first LGBTQ-themed shelter; initiated a mobile methadone treatment facility; did away with the $200 fee for GEDs for homeless young people; and created permanent funding for homeless winter shelters in San Francisco. By removing SROs from the purview of the Ellis Act, he potentially helped prevent thousands of people from becoming homeless.</p>
<p>But none of these steps resembles the frontal assault Leno has formulated this year and sent to city voters via glossy mailers. “I am committed to ending street homelessness by 2020,” Leno promised to voters.</p>
<p>How does he propose doing this? By housing people in the more than 1,800 unoccupied private SRO units detailed in <a href="http://sfpublicpress.org/news/homelessness/solutions/2017-10/no-vacancy-for-the-homeless">“No Vacancy for the Homeless,”</a> in the <a href="http://sfpublicpress.org/homelessness/solutions">Public Press’ fall 2017 issue</a> about solutions to homelessness. (Leno and his top adviser on homeless matters, former homelessness czar Bevan Dufty, both acknowledged they had read the report, for which Dufty served as a source.)</p>
<h2>Market Hampers Quick Fixes</h2>
<p>Leno’s plan, which cites 1,500 vacancies, is to move 1,000 homeless residents into these rooms “immediately.” But, as the article noted, these rooms are being kept empty for a variety of reasons, ranging from fire damage to an owner’s desire to boost the value of the building. And this plan would be costly. The city would be bidding against real estate powerhouses, including the emerging industry converting low-income housing to high-end hostels for tech workers. In short, Leno faces obstacles in this plan, and may be forced to re-examine the feasibility of doing anything “immediately.”</p>
<p>“There are market forces that would be working against us,” Leno acknowledged. “But, first, we have to know how many empty SROs there are in the city. We should know. My position would be, ‘let’s get this conversation started.’ Let’s bring the owners of these buildings into City Hall and let’s start addressing what the hurdles are that would keep us from accessing the units. Let’s put some energy into having respectful conversations with the owners of those properties and see where we can get to.”</p>
<p>Dufty, now on the <a href="https://www.bart.gov/about/bod/bodMembersDetail_09">BART board</a>, claimed that the unwillingness of the administration of Ed Lee, the former mayor who died in December, to have such conversations regarding vacant SRO rooms — or to consider a number of the suggestions that found their way into Leno’s homeless plan — was a major reason why <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dufty-out-as-homeless-czar-deputy-to-take-6567096.php">he resigned</a> as Lee’s adviser.</p>
<p>Leno said it would cost around $40 million to house 1,000 homeless residents in SRO hotels. He said he asked <a href="http://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-lee-announces-city’s-new-department-homelessness-supportive-housing-appoints-jeff">Jeff Kositsky</a>, the head of the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, “What keeps us from doing this?” His was a short answer: “Funding.”</p>
<h2>‘Cascading Savings’ by Filling Vacant SROs</h2>
<p>Leno’s plan does not outline specific funding sources, however, beyond the “regional housing and homelessness bond” and a “top-to-bottom audit of dollars spent on homelessness.”</p>
<p>That is not ideal. But, Leno said, moving vulnerable people off the street will create “cascading savings” as police, Public Works employees and others are confronted with fewer crises. Public Works boss <a href="http://sfpublicworks.org/about/director-public-works">Mohammed Nuru</a> budgets $60 million a year to clean streets, Leno noted. (Weeks after his Public Press interview, that figure grew by $17 million, as Mayor Mark Farrell announced a campaign to clear encampments and scrub feces and dirty needles off the streets.)</p>
<p>“But Mohammed is using half of that to clean sidewalks,” Leno continued. “Dirty sidewalks are a symptom of a bigger problem — of 3,500 people who are living where they should not be. As long as they do, Mohammed will keep spending $30 million and going back every week and cleaning them again. And that’s a waste of money.”</p>
<p>Moving a large chunk of the city’s homeless indoors into vacant SROs would spare the city from spending this money, which could be redirected into housing. “We’ll save at the Department of Public Health. We’ll save at San Francisco General. The longer people are on the street, the sicker they get. Police who have to deal with the homeless population can spend more time on auto break-ins and home burglaries.” This is what Leno means by “cascading savings.”</p>
<p>Even with that, however, Leno predicted more money would be needed. “Again, if this is our priority, if this is our biggest issue, let’s commit to it,” he said. “Let’s get very serious about it, identify the need, identify the cost, and then determine the revenue to pay for it.”</p>
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/election2018june/2018-05/in-mayoral-run-leno-promises-to-get-serious-about-affordable-housing-crisis#commentsGovernmentHousingBudgetWealth & povertyElectionsLand useSan FranciscoHomelessnessHousing SolutionsaffordableEllis ActevictioninclusionaryMark LenorentSB 827single room occupancyspeculatorsSROupzoningMon, 07 May 2018 14:00:07 +00003128 at https://sfpublicpress.orgJoe Eskenazi